


fiat justitia, ruat caelum.

by elumish



Series: A Just City [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Amelia Bones, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 17:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16958088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elumish/pseuds/elumish
Summary: In which Amelia Bones single-handedly changes the world (with a little help from her friends).or, who says the Wizarding World doesn't have a functioning justice system?





	fiat justitia, ruat caelum.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to A Half-Step to the Left, but it should be understandable even without reading that.

_ Dear Madam Bones, _

_ Enclosed with this letter is a pensieve memory that you might find useful in your case against accused mass murderer Sirius Black. As Black never received a trial, the addition of any new evidence can, of course, only be helpful. I hope that this leads you down the road in your pursuit of justice. _

_ -A friend _

Amelia turns the small vial holding what appears to be a single pensieve memory over in one hand, tapping on the letter with her other hand. It was delivered by a for-hire owl with no distinguishing markings, and the letter was written in a neat, firm hand that could have come from anywhere from a lower-class pureblood to a particularly dedicated muggleborn. The paper is standard, the ink is standard, the vial is standard.

The only thing that isn’t standard is the contents.

She hasn’t viewed the memory yet--has checked it for curses, yes, but not beyond that--but she will. She has to. The Sirius Black case has been the biggest case in decades, particularly because the minister is so determined for the Cedric Diggory death to not be investigated, and she refuses to live with a mass murderer running free any longer than she has to.

But there’s something about the letter, something about how it’s phrased, about its reference to Black never having a trial--and is that possible, can he possibly have never had a trial, no matter that he was convicted and jailed--that makes her think that this isn’t as simple as evidence against Black.

There’s a creeping sense of dread trickling down the back of her neck, the same sense she got just before she was notified of the murders of her brother and his wife that left her with custody of her young niece, and it leaves her reluctant enough to view the memory that she sets it aside for just the moment, locking it in her desk with a ward so strong it will burn the hand of anyone who tries to open it.

And then she goes looking for Sirius Black’s original trial transcripts, something she’s not sure why she never looked for before. She could ask her eminently helpful assistant Primrose to locate it, but given her sense of dread and her growing suspicions, she want to look herself.

She joins Arthur Weasley in the lift, and he smiles at her. “Alright, Amelia?” Amelia must not manage a responding smile fast enough, because his fades into a look of concern, and he asks, “Still caught up in the Dementor investigation?”

“Something like that,” she says, even though she’s made no progress in that investigation in weeks and has narrowed it down to one auror still working on it. But she doesn’t want to reveal her suspicions to anybody until she has something more solid to work off of.

Arthur shakes his head. “Dementors in a muggle neighborhood. What is the world coming to?”

“I’ll let you know when I find out,” Amelia says, and then the elevator stops at the floor with the trial archives, and she steps out. “Have a good day, Arthur.”

The trial files from the original Death Eater trials are exactly the disaster she expected them to be, made worse by the fact that people have been going through them recently without any awareness of how to keep the files neat. But they’re mostly thin and lacking, because most of the people either confessed or were turned on by fellow Death Eaters for a lighter sentence, and because investigative capabilities at the time had been decimated by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s forces

A wave of relief hits her as soon as she puts her hands on Black’s file, and she has to let out a slow breath to calm her hands before she opens it.

At first, she thinks she’s imagining it. But inside the file is a single page containing only an intake photograph wherein Black looks young and traumatized, a list of crimes, and a half-inked stamp with the word CONVICTED.

She turns the paper over, shakes the file out despite being able to see that there’s only one sheet in it, but no, that’s it, it’s only that single paper. She heard that he confessed, but there’s no corresponding interrogator’s pensieve memory, no transcript of the confession, and absolutely no trial transcript.

That sense of dream redoubles in her chest, and she signs the file out, tucks it under her shoulder, and heads back to her office. Something is very wrong here, and she should have checked this far sooner than she did.

She has a small pensieve in her desk, and she sets it up and takes out the vial, pouring it in.

From the echo of the memory swimming on the top, it looks as though it involves a few Hogwarts students and a few adults all in some sort of small space, the faces too blurred for her to make out from here. But from what she can see, she thinks one of those adults is Black, and she has that same sinking feeling that she knows what this is.

With a deep breath, Amelia heads into the pensieve.

\--

“We are  _ not _ reopening the Black case. Not  _ now _ of all times.” Minister Fudge’s face is a deep red, and he is shaking with anger. “He’s  _ guilty _ .”

Amelia lets out a breath instead of saying all of the things she wants to say; she’s loyal to the Ministry, but she’s become increasingly convinced that one can’t be loyal to both the Ministry and the Minister. “Sirius Black was not given a trial, as the law requires.”

“He  _ confessed _ .”

“Then where is the record of that confession, Minister? Where is the investigation?” Amelia smooths a hand down her robes. “If he is guilty, it will be no trouble to convict him in a true trial, and that will be a great win for the Ministry because it will convince the public that we are operating as best as we can. It will help them trust us in these troubled times.”

Fudge’s lips thin. “These times are  _ not _ troubled.”

“A boy is dead, Minister, and we had dementors loose in a muggle neighborhood.” And Harry Potter is alleging that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned, but mentioning that will shut this conversation down entirely. “We must hold that trial, Minister.”

“How dare you dictate policy to me?”

Now Amelia draws herself up to her full height, reminding him, “I am the head of the DMLE, and I have the final call on whether a case is reopened or a trial of this sort is held. I am here with you as a courtesy, Minister Fudge, but neither policy nor magic will allow you to stop me. Sirius Black will be given a trial, if I have to escort him safely past the Dementors myself.”

“But--but--” Fudge sputters. “But if he is innocent, then he--then--”

“Have a good day, Minister.”

\--

“The biggest problem,” Primrose says around bites of muggle Indian takeaway, “is getting Black to show up for trial.”

“You don’t think the notorious fugitive who we possibly wrongly imprisoned for over a decade will be eager to turn himself in just because we promise him a fair trial?” Amelia asks with a smile. “Honestly, I would be a bit disappointed in him if he would.”

“Is there any way to force him to come?”

Amelia wipes her hands on a highly ineffective paper napkin, trying to scrub off the feeling of grease and failure. “Not safely, and not at all if he is where I suspect he is.”

“Which is?”

Amelia hesitates, then explains, “We’ve had watches on the Black Manor and the rest of their properties since the escape, but there is a property in London that was rumored to be used solely as a living space rather than for entertaining. It’s Unplottable and, if I’m not wrong, one of the securest places in London. If he’s in Britain, I’d bet you a hundred galleons he’s in there, and if he’s in there, we’re not getting him out until he wants to leave.”

Primrose frowns at her. “Don’t most location-based protection spells fade when the caster has died?”

“Old pureblood manors all have anchoring so that it just transfers to the heir, so as long as a member of the line is alive, the manors will stay secured. But the Blacks--you never knew the Blacks, I suppose.”

“I was in Hogwarts at the same time as Nymphadora Tonks, and her mother was one of the Blacks.”

Amelia shakes her head. “Andromeda left the Black line. But the Blacks--of which Sirius Black remained, as their heir, despite everything else--they poured literal blood into their protections over generation after generation. And the Blacks don’t always win, but they make sure to drag you down with them if they lose. So if Sirius Black doesn’t want us in that house, we won’t be.”

“But blood rituals have been illegal for over a century.”

“Their protections have predated those laws by centuries. And even if they didn’t, things like legality have never much stopped those like the Blacks. Which brings us back to the original problem: how do we get Sirius Black here for a trial?”

Primerose doesn’t answers, chewing thoughtfully on a piece of naan, and Amelia returns to eating as well. Primrose is a brilliant assistant, and part of that is her ability to think issues through without needing to talk her way through them. She’s not always the fastest, but her ideas when she reaches them are generally quite good.

“The person who sent you the original letter,” Primrose says finally, “they must have contact with Black to have gotten that pensieve memory.”

Amelia nods. “It did appear to be from Black’s perspective. But I don’t know who they are and so have no way of contacting them.”

“You could use the pensieve memory, tell the owl to return it to the person who’s memory it is.”

“But then I lose the only real piece of evidence in the entire case.”

“The other option, then, is to talk to those who were in the memory.” Primrose presses her lips together the way she does when she thinks something isn’t adding up or hasn’t been dealt with properly. Amelia sees that look a lot when Primrose is going through Auror’s submitted paperwork. “I was new to this part of the Ministry then, but didn’t the Minister talk about how Potter claimed Black was innocent? Before Black vanished. And Potter was in that memory.”

“Do you think Potter sent the letter?”

Primrose waves a hand at that. “Doubtful. Somebody would have noticed if Harry Potter was meeting with notorious fugitive Sirius Black. But he might have more information. And we could bring in Remus Lupin as well without drawing too much attention, given his lycanthropy.”

Werewolves can be taken in for questioning at any time, for any reason, a law that is cruel but at times useful. It’s a law nobody has any vested interest in changing, and so it’s never changed.

“The muggleborn girl and the little Weasley would be harder, though, and questioning Professor Snape would attract more attention and would likely lead to pushback by Professor Dumbledore.”

Amelia considers that, then says, “Potter, then, and Lupin. But I want the conversations with both of them to be quiet. Potter is likely suspicious enough of the Ministry as it is, and I don’t want to ruin the werewolf’s life for no reason. I’ll talk to both of them on my own,” she adds, and doesn’t comment on her assistant’s look of relief. 

\--

Amelia calls Remus Lupin in first, because it’s a simpler matter to get him to the Ministry, and he is escorted to her office by an overzealous Auror with his wand on Lupin’s back. He looks far older than she remembers, older than his thirty-odd years, and she wonders if that’s the war or the lycanthropy.

With a wave, she dismisses Auror Knightley, then says, “Thank you for coming, Mr. Lupin.”

Lupin smiles thinly, hands loose at his side as he follows her into her office. He doesn’t startle when the door shuts behind him, only stands there until she gestures towards the chair across her desk from hers.

“Do you know why you’ve been called in here?” she asks once they’re both sitting.

“Werewolves may be called into the Ministry for questioning at any time, for any reason,” he says mildly, and nothing else.

“I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong,” Amelia tells him, and is gratified that this, at least, gets a reaction, even if Lupin hides it quickly. “In fact, I apologize for having to call you in at all, but I need to talk to you about Sirius Black. Specifically, a few days ago I received an unsigned letter containing a pensieve memory of a confrontation between Sirius Black, Severus Snape, three Hogwarts students, yourself...and Peter Pettigrew.”

Lupin sucks in a sharp breath before he can stop himself, and then the strained look on his face eases into the closest thing Amelia has seen yet to a genuine smile from him. “Oh, very clever, that.”

Amelia leans across his desk towards him. “Do you know who sent the letter?”

“I don’t know,” Lupin says, still smiling. “Are you looking for corroboration of that event? I can provide you with a copy of my own memory of that time, as tangled as it is likely to be with my transformation.”

“That would be useful, though that is not exactly what I called you in here for. Were you aware that Black was sent to Azkaban without ever receiving a trial?”

“I became aware of that after he escaped, yes.”

“That is a travesty,” Amelia says honestly, “and a miscarriage of justice, and I would like to see it rectified, particularly because I now have evidence that Black was not guilty of the crimes he was convicted of. The problem is that I have no way of contacting Black and convincing him to come to a trial when we have had a Kiss on sight order for two years. Do you have any suggestions for that?”

“I’m afraid I don’t,” Lupin says. “But if Sirius were to...appear, how could you ensure that he wasn’t simply Kissed instead?”

Amelia settles back in her chair, forcing down the smile that wants to erupt. Lupin won’t admit to having contact with Black, but he has a means of it, of that she has no doubt. “Mr. Lupin, if Sirius Black turns himself over to me, I will walk him into the courtroom myself.”

“And other crimes he has committed--escaping Azkaban, for instance? Would he not just be sent right back for that?”

“Unless he has used an Unforgivable or murdered somebody since his escape, if he is found innocent, any other crimes will be considered having already been served for.”

Lupin examines her for a moment, and she lets him, because if anybody has a reason to be mistrustful of the Ministry, it’s a werewolf. Finally, he says, “Thank you for this information. I’m afraid I have no suggestions for how you can reach Sirius, of course, him being a dangerous fugitive, but I hope you’re successful in this endeavor.”

Amelia nods, standing. “Thank you for your help, Mr. Lupin.” She hesitates, then adds, “I know that the Ministry has made it more difficult for werewolves in recent months.”

“I expect little else,” Lupin says, and walks out of her office.

\--

Harry Potter is more complicated to met with, but in the end Amelia contacts Minerva and asks for permission for Amelia to meet with Potter in Hogsmeade during a Saturday when Potter is allowed out there. 

Potter is smaller than she expects, with hunched shoulders and his robe sleeves pulled down his hands like he’s cold. There’s a nip in the air, but not nearly the chill there’ll be in the winter.

“Mr. Potter,” Amelia says, offering him a hand to shake; he his a firm handshake, if a brief one. They’re in as secluded a table as there is in the Three Broomsticks, though Amelia wishes they could be in her office or at the very least in a room she controls. But there’s little she can do about that at the moment, so she just gestures to the chair across the table from her, saying, “Please.”

“Thank you.” Potter sits down, barely taking her eyes off of her as he watches her like she’s a wild animal he’s expecting to bite him. Given how the Ministry has been talking about him, she can’t blame him. “Professor McGonagall wouldn’t tell me why you wanted to talk to me.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t give her many details,” Amelia says. “I’m trying to keep this as quiet as possible for the time being.”

“This being…?”

“Mr. Potter, when you were in your third year at Hogwarts, you had a brief confrontation with an animagus named Peter Pettigrew who had supposedly deceased but had been living as Ronald Weasley’s pet rat for a dozen years.”

“He was Percy’s, I think, before Ron got him.”

That’s not the answer Amelia was expecting--she had expected some question about how she knew that, or some outburst from the deluded man the Ministry is claiming he is. Even though she believes him about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, perhaps she has bought too much into the Ministry’s propaganda.

But regardless, the fact that he doesn’t appear to be remotely curious about where she got her information indicates that perhaps he was more involved in getting the memory to her than she had thought.

“Regardless,” she says, “evidence has come to light to suggest that Sirius Black might in fact have been innocent of the crimes he was charged with.” Saying that is a risk; if he goes around yelling that Sirius Black is innocent, Fudge will use the Prophet to quash her investigation, and all of this will have been for naught.

“About time you’ve all realized that,” Potter says.

“What I do need is more evidence about this case, and what would be most helpful would be to locate Peter Pettigrew, assuming he is still alive. Do you have any idea where he is?”

Potter stares at her, and then he bursts into laughter, the kind of laughter that comes not from happiness or amusement but something much darker. Still laughing, he shoves up his sleeve to show her a thick white scar that stands out against his forearm. It looks like it was made by a knife. “Wormtail--Pettigrew did this. He did this to take my blood and bring Voldemort back to life.” Amelia flinches at the name, digging her finger into her legs, but she doesn’t interrupt. “You want to know where he is? I have no bloody idea. But I can tell you this--wherever he is, Voldemort is there too.” He jerks his sleeve back down. “But all of you at the Ministry, you want to pretend Voldemort isn’t back, right? So I guess you won’t go looking for him, and Sirius will just keep--” He cuts himself off, dragging a hand through his hair

Amelia is breathing heavily, she finds, nearly as heavily as Potter is, as though she herself had just run a race or ranted about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s return in the middle of a inn in Hogsmeade. But she manages to slow her breathing enough to say. “I see. And would you be able to provide me pensieve memories from that incident, so that I can confirm that Peter Pettigrew was there?”

“Can you--what? I thought the Ministry didn’t want to…”

“I must acquire the evidence for my case,” Amelia says, “no matter what else it may reveal.”

Potter smiles, just a little, and asks, “And this memory will be shown at the trial, right? If there is a trial?”

“It would certainly be necessary to prove that Peter Pettigrew is still alive, so I cannot think of a reason why it would not be shown.”

“Then yeah,” Potter says. “Yeah, of course. I don’t know how to give over pensieve memories, but--”

“I will show you, Mr. Potter. Thank you for all of your help. The Ministry appreciates your cooperation in this matter.”

\--

When Arthur Weasley comes into the Ministry with a dog trailing behind him, nobody notices.

Or, rather, people notice, but they are used to seeing odd things, and they are particularly used to seeing Arthur Weasley with odd things, and a collarless dog padding obediently behind him is far less suspicious than the terrifying muggle devices he insists on examining, and so an individual yet unanimous decision is made to ignore the dog.

So when Arthur Weasley knocks on Amelia’s office door and then enters with the dog still following behind him, she is entirely unprepared for that dog to turn itself into notorious fugitive Sirius Black.

“He followed me home,” Arthur says, smiling cheerfully. “I thought you might have more use for him than I would.”

“I see,” Amelia says, because how else can she respond. “Well, thank you, Arthur. Perhaps be cautious when you see yourself out, so that it’s not immediately obvious that I have a fugitive in my office.”

“Of course.” Arthur neatly transfigures one of her chairs into a fair facsimile of the dog that had followed him in, saying, “I’ll bring the chair back later,” and heads back out of the office, opening the door just wide enough for himself and the dog to slip out before closing it again.

“So,” notorious fugitive Sirius Black says, dropping down into her remaining chair, “I heard you want to give me a trial.”

“First,” Amelia says, “I want to know why you confessed.”

A haunted look comes over Black’s face, and his shoulders hunch for a second before he falls into what looks like a perfect pureblood posture. It looks accidental, and she doesn’t comment on it. “Because it was my fault that James and Lily were killed. If I hadn’t suggested they switch Secret Keepers...but I did, and they’re dead, and Harry grew up without parents. But I didn’t betray James and Lily. I would never. James was my brother.”

That last tiny little doubt, living in the back of Amelia’s mind despite the pensieve memory of Peter Pettigrew resurrecting He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, shrivels and dies, because Amelia believes him. Potter, Black, and the rest of them had entered Hogwarts when Amelia was in her sixth year, and she had been a Hufflepuff and so had almost no direct interaction with them during school, but even she had known about Black running away from home to move in with the Potters. It had been quite a scandal among pureblood circles.

“You will have a trial,” Amelia vows. “I will see justice done.”

“Just like that? Just from me saying that I’m innocent?”

“You will have a trial because you should have had a trial. Guilty people get trials too. But in particular, now, I believe that you are innocent. And a trial is the only way to convince the public that you are.” 

“And am I just supposed to live in your office until the trial?”

“Yes.”

\--

The trial room is packed to the ceiling when Amelia escorts Sirius Black in to it. They’re in the largest chamber, one that holds not only the full Wizengamot but nearly two hundred members of the wizarding public as well. Fudge had wanted a small trial, with nobody but the Wizengamot, but Amelia had overruled him.

She might be fired for this, she knows. There is no legal reason to force her out, but the Ministry has been doing a lot recently that has no legal reasoning behind it. And if this is her last action, she will take it proudly.

She had ordered that Dementors not be allowed in the chamber, but she has her patronus leading the way anyway, a massive tiger loping through the chamber in front of the two of them. Black keeps smiling at it, small quick smiles as though he’s trying to hide them and can’t quite manage it, and so she has it stop next to the seat where Black will be seated. She’s not certain if she’ll be able to maintain it for the entire trial, but given that half an hour earlier Black had looked as though he would barely be able to pry himself out of her office, she’s willing to help him a bit.

“Madam Bones,” Fudge bursts out as she approaches her seat, “what is this?”

“Sirius Black, Minister. As ordered to appear on trial.”

Fudge pales, then turns a bright red. “Your patronus, Madam Bones, not the defendant.”

“Ah,” Amelia says, taking her seat. “A tiger.”

\--

Black is found nearly unanimously innocent; a few Wizengamot members are so traumatized by the projected pensieve memory of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s resurrection that they don’t manage to vote either way.

Wand returned, Black looks immediately happier; frankly, Amelia can’t imagine spending a week without her wand, much less more than a decade. Along with the wand comes a public apology--from Amelia, because the Minister disappears the moment the voting has finished--and a reassurance that, though he may be charged with future crimes, any crimes committed before this trial will be considered having already resolved.

“Just don’t forget that animagus registration,” Amelia tells him. “And please don’t make me come after you any time soon.”

“Me?” Black grins at her. “Never.”

Amelia resolves herself to just not be available for the next few months.

Black hurries off towards Lupin, and Amelia is preparing to head back to her office to find a Headache Potion and maybe some firewhiskey when someone appears at her elbow. It’s the muggleborn girl from that first memory, Hermione Granger. She’s wearing her Hogwarts robes, and that makes her blood status more obvious than perhaps anything else. Even half-bloods would have other robes.

“Thank you,” Granger says, “for giving Harry his godfather. He needs some adult who cares about him.”

“Mr. Potter has guardians, does he not?”

Granger gives her a smile that they both know is disingenuous, then says, “Of course. But I worry, you see. Harry is just such a good friend.”

And then, with a smile, Granger walks away.

**Author's Note:**

> There's more! I'm really tempted to keep going with this, though I don't have any specific plans at the moment.


End file.
